Far away

But the storm came rolling in
the storm came rolling in
a million miles of prairie grass
and your golden-haired girl
exposed once again

Wandering around my mind

The pen bothered me. So I asked him about it.  “Where’d you get this pen again?”  It was fat and full of multi-colored ink cartridges.

The strange animal character on the screen jumped over a crumpled brick wall with an appropriate boing sound.  “I found it,” he answered.

“Oh.  Okay.”  I walked into the hallway.  But I wanted to know more, so I asked, “Where?”

“School, I think,” he shouted from the other room.

“Okay.”  But I still didn't remember.  I knew I remembered at one time—and that was the worst part.

In stasis

And just when I thought I had made

myself old over wishing for

something to whisper

like a kind stranger into

my ear,

            I understand, and I do not

            blame you

I find myself catching the edge of

every movement of

atmosphere even the leaves

have forgotten.

Listening,

waiting...

Tomorrow and tomorrow

Diary entry, April 20, 2014

You think you know.  You can never know.  You will never know anything other than a name that means nothing to you.  You are trapped in the network.  The hallway has no exit.  The bicycle has no wheels.  If you step outside of the red lines there is nothing to stand on.  You will fall.  You will fall, and you will not even remember how to scream, but it won’t matter.  Because no one would hear you even if you did.  You are a story I sold for a million howls of laughter.  For a million screams of pleasure.  You are nothing.  You were just one more born to serve a purpose, and now you are used up.  No wonder you question living.  You know there is no purpose left for you.  I tore you into tiny pieces and gave bits to any who asked.  I did this because you are useless.  No one cared then, and no one cares now.  You are a piece of lint to be flicked away, blown into nowhere.

Legacy

I remembered watching from behind the door my mother sit on the edge of her bed, the shades pulled down and her body hunched over as if she had no strength to hold herself up, as she cried for the drunken husband who had disappeared once again.  It had taught me one thing:  make sure to close the door all of the way.  So only after I heard the door click shut did I sit on the edge of the bed, and cry for the husband who had forced me to leave him.

Refugee

Mother with child, 2015

Tell it how because of you I lie.
If I could reach between the slivers,
I would spread the dirt across my neck and
arms and cheeks and I
would muddy your triumph.
But I cannot tell yet what
you have done to me.
I must instead murmur little rivers of
fantasies,
rapturous babbling to submerge what we
know, what we fear of you, the dirt and I,
together we have silenced the shouting
angels with tar-pitched wings.

Because I know, 
you are victory and you are vicious murder.
What a strange game, I acknowledge these bruises
and tumors and tragedies as they
mock me through the
ravaged ends of
my hair.

Shadows

This is not how I meant it to be.
This is not who I meant to become.
These are not the memories I
expected to replay in my
head as I remembered who
I once had been.

Escape

Here in this leaving
triumph is fleeting
from so far away
no tongues left to speak in

Hiding

They found it, separately.  Sometimes one at a time, sometimes in small groups.  They all instinctively shied away from each other, accepted without argument that certain hallways would remain locked to them.  What did they want to see each other for, anyway?  They didn’t.  They didn’t, and they wouldn’t.

Once they had all arrived and found themselves their own shadowy corners, the teenage boy appeared.  He went to a courtyard in the middle, surrounded on all sides by brick walls with windows that opened from the inside.  On a white sheet spread out on the concrete ground he very deliberately started placing red plastic drinking straws.  No one watched him and he paid attention to no one else.

Over time the straws began to form an intricate pattern.  Those hiding in the brick building did not want to look at it, and when they did, they pretended not to understand.  Was it a formula, they asked?  The kind you needed to be a math genius to understand, perhaps?  They were not math geniuses, so they would never understand it.  Satisfied, they slid away from the windows. 

But the group of pirate boys living in the trees overhead did not leave.  They watched from the tree house they built high in the branches.  They knew what the red straws on the white sheet meant.  They knew it was a key.  A key to a map that would lead everyone in the building to the one place no one wanted to go. 

No one, that is, but them.

One more night

burned across my heart your forgotten message

the language lost in time with the words rewritten

resuscitate the girl she is out of breathing

collapsed under the hope she could not believe in

the soot was in her eyes she could only cry

was this my one great truth

            did I give up    

too soon?

Another bad day

So you did it, and I'm not dead.
I'm not paralyzed, maimed, 
I have a life.
And, knowing who you are, I
can tell you to kiss off
without much reason for guilt.
But it is who I am,
It is what you have made me.
It is ugly way down here,
and the ugliness smells like you.

This one flower

Stunned, hurt, and on the verge of tears, Josie stared at the spot where the King had just been standing.  She had known it was impossible—that she could never stay in the Interior, and that he would never cross over.  Neither of them would have dared ask the other to make such a huge sacrifice.  But at the same time she’d told herself that, although they couldn't truly be together, she would at least be able to see him sometimes.  That he would just completely disappear from her life—she hadn't considered that possibility for a moment.  Not after everything they’d been through together.  His impersonal thanks on behalf of his people…she never would have believed it would end like that. 

And yet it had.

Regrets

When all aboard ride the night train alone

mark the passing of the time with the

falling of the

snow

No use in unpacking for tomorrow    

tomorrow is a thousand midnight

dreams of summer

away.

Remains of this day

Sometimes I'm okay.  It’s just that I keep coming back to the not being okay.  I don’t want to keep coming back.  I want to forget the way, so that I can never come back here again.  I want to walk out of these hallways, out into the light, and never look back.  I want the boy with the red straws to wave goodbye to me from the stoop, a little smile on his face, because he knows I will never be back.  I want to leave all of the dogs and cats with him, because I know he’ll take care of them.  I want to see Mike jumping up and down, hear him shouting, “Good luck,” while Mary laughs at him.  I want Helga and even Ron and all of the others to be gathered behind the pirate kids, everyone waving goodbye and none of us feeling sad because this was how we all, secretly in our heart of hearts, hoped it would end.  I want to leave them to turn the giant, dark school building with the hallways that go everywhere and nowhere into a university with courtyards and windows and signs with directions.  I want them to leave me to walk off into the forest illuminated by mid-day sun. 

The morning has gone.  All I want now is the afternoon.  Please.

The first conversation with George

George wants to know what we’re going to talk about.

Well, I don’t know, I tell him. 

I guess about what’s on the other side of the wall.

Okay, he says, what’s on the other side of the wall?

Grass, I answer.  And trees.  England.  Dogs.  Cats

Birds and cows and children and French fries.

Music, some of it beautiful.  Pictures and art.

Questions about steam and smoke and words that

cannot be pronounced.

All of these things and more.

Hmmmn, he replies, I know about most of

those things. 

I’m not sure what’s in it for me.

You can’t want to be inside of those walls,

I protest.

It must be boring, and so lonely.

Boring, no, he says, because I still have

my mind.

Lonely, sometimes.  But I wasn’t made to

feel much.

I could ask what you were made to do,

I reply.

But I don’t think I want to know.

A work in progress, 1995

For me, overcoming my habit of disassociation was a lot like kicking drugs.  I needed the ability to disassociate to make my life bearable, but, ultimately, the defense became the obstacle and I realized I had to start living outside of my head if I wanted my life to be "normal."  I knew this to be true; but I didn't appreciate it.  In fact, I hated it.  The process made me question everything:  who I was, my belief in God, etc.  I think I needed to come to grips with what my life was and had been before I could even consider claiming it.  I had to convince myself that everything would be okay, even if it wasn't how I wanted it to be.  

Poetry journal, 1993

Where are you tonight?
I see you sitting on the low-backed blue
sofa only a cat could
love
complaining about me and discussing
Jung and astrology in the same
breath
I see you you are so unknowable
I hate one person more and that is
myself.

Hidden hope

She has a memory.  One beautiful memory.  Carefully held in the palm of her hands, so that no one else might find it and steal it.  She must leave it nowhere.  It must always remain with her.  The memory of that one summer morning, while they still slept.  The pavement of the driveway cool on her bare feet as she stepped into the shadow cast by the huge Mountain Ash in the front yard, the sun burning golden at the edges.  No one must have this moment.  This moment must never be touched.

No going back

Back in her room, Josie opened her jewellery box and allowed herself to gaze at the bracelet the King had given her.  For months she’d worn it every day, hoping the marble would glow again.  It never did.  The day she had taken it off she’d cried for hours.

Now, here in her dorm room, there was still sadness, tinged with the kind of loss she had hoped she’d never know again.  But as Josie closed the jewellery box, she heard girls giggling down the hallway; she thought about Shruti, who she was meeting for dinner in the cafeteria, and of her classes that began next week.  She could only hope her new life would help her put the old one to rest once and for all.  

Poetry journal, March 1999

Because my faith is an icicle
dripping and flirting with
the front steps
knowing that with just
one snap it could
pierce the chest
end the need to believe
forever

Unseen

...blinded by a million sparkling dreams

                snowflakes falling into infinity...

Essay, 1985

At one time or another, everyone feels a regret or hurt that they hold deep down inside until it nearly crushes them.  By the time it reaches the critical point, though, the person himself has to let it go.  They may never be totally forgiven for what they once did, but complete absolution is rare.  To release the pain, we first must realize that we are holding it inside.  Many people deny this until it hits them like a sudden storm.

Acceptance

      “You tried to kill me,” Josie said, and she could tell that she had the Minister’s complete attention now; it was as if he had become deaf to the sounds of battle around them.  In some ways she felt deaf to them, too, but Josie was no fool—she knew exactly what her grandfather was.  Yet at the same time she understood what he had gone through.  He was no monster.  He was just a man, made bitter and cold by the tragedies of life.  The day her father stepped through the Last Window, he had put into motion a chain of events he never could have anticipated—and he had caused those who loved him unbelievable pain.  That sort of pain Josie had seen in herself, along with her mother and Jack.  In the face of such agony even good people could stumble.  For that reason, Josie said quietly, “I forgive you.”

Doodles of the Disturbed Mind, again

November 30, 2006
The fire in the corner
the hole in the universe
please don't hurt me

Empty

do you see where eternity ends

did you know that you were my friend

this planet a box that holds me

A Window to the World

September 21, 2003, California

It should be about her life here as much about her experiences there.

A misunderstanding

When I lost my travel book centuries ago

burned the ancient forest where

you were my favorite tree

You are the reality I cannot close in on

what flew through my hair that I

             mistook for permanency          

Tomorrow is Crying for You (Pt. 5)

I woke still tucked between the sweaters, and still, to my disappointment, very tiny.  A quick check confirmed the presence of fairy wings.   I risked a small peek outside of the drawer, but nothing in the room had changed.  The lamp glowed softly, the faded flower-printed covers of the double bed remained untouched.

As I emerged from the drawer I realized I had no idea how long I’d slept.   The endless twilight had not given way to dawn—it never did.  That hadn’t seemed to matter the other times I’d visited, but now it left me cold.  I wanted to know how long I’d been in this room—or at least to believe that the clock was ticking down on this fairy fantasy, and that soon I would wake up somewhere else.

Try as I might, though, I could find no clock.  In low spirits I left the room, the quiet now beginning to stifle me.  Yet it seemed unwise to make my own noise, so I flew in almost total silence back to the restaurant, hoping to discover Marietta this time.

Diary entry, March 2014

But I can’t.  I can’t because I'm afraid.  The stories come to me in dreams and haunt me.  They refuse translation.  I am afraid.  I don’t want anyone to know me.  I don’t want anyone to know anything.  I don’t want to know myself.

Saint Margaret

Oh, yes, the dragon replies,

I shielded you

But then the closet nearly

burned down with you

in it

If you are ready to speak

the riddle

we are waiting

we are in no hurry

but I am not mistaken

you know the words

you deny them

I no longer deny you

Haunted

"If you could never go back to your world, what would you miss most?"

Josie thought of Jack and her mother; of her aunt; of how it felt to stand barefoot on the cool driveway pavement early on a summer morning.  "Pumpkin bread," she answered.

"Pumpkin bread," the King repeated.  "What is pumpkin bread?"

"Something worth missing."

The King wondered why Josie's smile seemed so sad.  But this time he did not ask.

Tomorrow is Crying for You (Pt. 4)

Still, my woolly thoughts seemed to be leading me somewhere, so I pushed out of my mind the math exams I’d missed, the classrooms I couldn’t find.  I didn’t want to think about the times I woke up in a library, with only a few days left to write a year-end term paper I hadn’t even started.  I never knew how these crises turned out, because suddenly they would be over, and I would be here, on my way to the restaurant to visit Marietta.  She never asked where I’d been.  She was my friend.

Finally the hallway widened into a large, silent atrium, with massive stairs leading to the second floor.  I buzzed up the staircase, following its curvature instead of simply flying straight up.  In the much smaller hallway off to the right some instinct, or past experience, brought me to a small bedroom, gently lit by a reading lamp.  I didn’t know whose it was or why no one slept there tonight, but I did know I would be safe here—at least for a little while.

Photo by C. Hornby

The bed, however, was not an option.  I fluttered over to the tall chest of drawers.  Each drawer had been left open, just the tiniest bit:  I settled for the middle drawer, the one with the thick woolly winter sweaters.  When I was big I’d hated wool and its scratchy, suffocating warmth, but now I curled myself into a tight ball between a snowflake-patterned jumper and a purple cabled cardigan and let out a little sigh.  Tomorrow, perhaps, I would be big again.  Tomorrow I might remember why I kept forgetting.

The Coming Fall

I do not know the riddle, I insist

perhaps this is a trick

there is no riddle

Is this what you must believe, the

dragon returns

I never told you so

the riddle has been scratching at you for years now

no wonder you are tired

I am not well, I repeat

I want none of your riddles

I only want peace

There is the problem, my child

there will be no peace until

you speak the words

you knew this long ago

Mary's Mother

where did I go to

just to be loyal            

to one last deception

cycles of wishing

no chance to be faithful

when I meant to love you       

dreams made me leave you

heavy as warheads

this fear almost fatal

here in your believing

triumph is fleeting

from so far away

no tongues left to speak in

so our silence becomes as

cold as the season

each yesterday we kill            

another act of treason

            but could it be             could it be       that she creeps up behind you

            could it be       could it be       that whispers will deny you   

                        no tears and no words             no soul for the selling

                        too much to pay                      to keep her from telling

since pain could not be swayed

a slow train runaway again

            the line for redemption

            from here to forever

and that jail you broke out of

the last portal to heaven

time is a monster                     asleep under the carpet

so easy to trip up on                to cover in never

with purples and yellows                    not just for pictures

but her yesterday sees            

her tomorrow remembers

because your shame hid away

a slow game come to play again

            the mercy you traded

            bursting with color                                                     

and what you thought finished

only just started

                        I could never love you

                        hope made me leave you

                        the damned has its day

                        trust still in the cradle

now here in this leaving

one stopped the bleeding

from a day unintended

night saved for dreaming           

where have you gone to

crouched in a circle

you married the flame

this death for your trouble

if only for tomorrow

one last declaration

a lifetime of knowing

I will be faithful

Tomorrow is Crying for You, Part 3

This corridor, illuminated by glass chandeliers, was, like the restaurant, empty and silent.  The noise of my beating wings sounded too loud in the stillness around me.  As I buzzed along, weaving and bobbing, expecting to plummet to the ground at any moment yet moving forward all the while, I felt vaguely troubled.  My illness had made the many snickets of my mind as dusky as the sky outside, but that wasn't the problem.  I’d been ill before.  I had forgotten before.  But when I’d woken up the other times, it was to find myself at school and late for a math exam, with just a faint, frustrated notion of where my classroom might be.  I was used to that, even if I hated it.  I was not used to this fairy business.

Uneasily, I wondered if I would ever be big again.  Where would I live until I was?  The doll house in the attic had gone long ago.  As with nearly everything else I cared about, it had been sacrificed for a future that kept morphing into a past I could not remember. 

The corridor seemed miles longer than usual, maybe because I was so little now.  I peered into all sorts of paper thin passageways I’d never noticed when I was big, but they were so dark and uninviting that dared not travel down any of them.  I needed to solve this fairy riddle first.  

Tomorrow is Crying for You, Part 2

            In this endless sunset that enveloped the restaurant, no customers ever came.  Instead, my friend Marietta, the hostess, usually sat at one of the perfectly made tables by herself, doing paperwork of a kind we never discussed.  Only the fading light that rippled through those whispering trees dared enter the large T-shaped room.  Why were there no customers?  On my previous visits I’d only seen Marietta in that hushed hour of solitude.  Like so many other questions I must have forgotten to ask her this one, too.

            Now, in the pantry, I stretched myself and without thinking remembered how to fly—I began running until suddenly my wings caught air and lifted me off of the hardwood floor.  From the kitchen I turned down the narrow, artificially lit hallway that led into the dining room.  No one waited for me; not even Marietta sat at her usual table.  Only I existed, passing through, a lightning bug in disguise. 

But while the restaurant was familiar, it was not safe.  I would need to find some other shelter, to clear my head, maybe to sleep and wake up again as something else.  In the lobby I held my breath and squeezed through the narrowest of gaps between the locked double doors.  When I exhaled again I rolled, tumbleweed style, into the magnificent hall that joined the restaurant to the great corridor.  

Gone

I cannot be alone

I am scared and exhausted with the effort

of being awake

It feels like I have been awake forever

I dream of snow

of running in it

of hearing the crunch of my footsteps

on the ice

I dream of diving into the water

so deep

and not needing air

I wish I had never seen it

never heard of it

never known it

I wish I could only remember it

as I ran in the snow

Journal entry, April 13, 2004

I remember this feeling.  It’s the feeling I have before/during a flashback—like I want to crawl out of my skin.  I just have to keep it at bay until Thursday.  I don’t want to do this while I'm alone.  And god knows Ryan doesn't need to deal with it.  Thursday.  I just have to wait until Thursday.

The Beginning, Tomorrow is Crying for You

I woke up as a fairy in the empty restaurant next to the woods.  I suppose I always knew when I wanted to live in the doll house in the attic that my hopes and dreams beat inside of a tiny heart.  But not until I opened my eyes and found myself crouching in the furthest corner of the kitchen pantry did I know for certain.

            I had been gone for a year—where, I couldn't say.  But I did know I’d been very ill, and that during this illness some industrious housekeeper within had thrown huge dust covers over much of my memory.  I wasn't sure I minded.  Something about the twilight endlessly falling over the woods told me that the last good day had been long ago.

            The restaurant, however, I remembered.  Quietly elegant, its white tablecloths, spotless place settings, and crystal water glasses spoke of another time.  Windows ran the length of the entire outside wall:  restless trees and half-lit sky filled the view as far as the eye could see.  In the cramped kitchen, steel grey units and panelled cabinets housed the pots, pans, and other cooking items.  And then there was the pantry, nearly empty, where I now found myself.  I had never seen anyone cooking in that kitchen.  Save one, I had never seen another soul in the restaurant at all.

The Dragon

There is a dragon in the elevator

He will not tell me his name but

I know it

I’ve heard it in my sleep

He says, stay asleep, little girl

I will not harm you

but I only pretend

I am here and I am alive

They say riddles are clues

but clues in a fortress

If only the dragon would let me pass

Ah, little girl, he says

you must solve the first riddle

to prove you are ready

I ask him what the first riddle is

and he laughs

He says that is why I am not ready

I cannot even hear the riddle

He says I know the words

He says no one stops my ears

but me

He says the riddle is my first clue

That I will hear it when I am ready

I say this is another trick

another stall

But he says no

he is the master of ceremonies only

I am in charge

I will know the riddle when I say it out loud